walknotinfear
New member
I am also in Florida. I hate leaving it in the car but I do just so I don't have to stand in line to have my weapon checked at the door.
It's posted as state and federal law at the door to gun shows in PA No loaded firearms allowed. I leave mine locked in a secure box in my truck.
It seems ironic you can't carry a loaded weapon into a gun show. I've mentioned it before and insurance is always quoted as the reason. Seems odd to me no guns are permitted in a gun show but plenty of people want to see them in schools. As Chris said, we have the choice not to go.
But businesses, excepting those run by some form of government, ARE private property. The business owner has EVERY right to set the rules for their property. If I chose to, I could tell all of my friends that they were not welcome on my property armed, or that they cannot speak in my home unless they speak in pirate-ese. Why the heck would it be any different if that property is a store I opened versus my house? I still own it. If you don't like my rules, take your scurvy infested, land lovin' body somewhere else.
Eh… wrong answer. You cannot run your business, which in most cases is open to and accommodates the general public, any way you like. The GOVERNMENT tells you how you may run your business, tells you against whom you may not discriminate, tells you (now, in particular) what you may do with employee insurance, how your parking lot and bathrooms must be configured to accommodate the disabled, etc., etc., etc. In most states these days, even though you may own the parking lot, you cannot exclude a firearms carrier from storing their firearm in their vehicle parked on YOUR property.
If you truly had the right to run your business the way you see fit, then things would be like Ron Paul wanted them to be - he opposed the civil rights act because he saw it as a violation of the private property rights of business owners to run their businesses completely as they saw fit. You would be able to have a parking lot without handicap spaces, bathrooms without the more costly handicap stalls, you would be able to tell a black, or latino, or oriental to take their business elsewhere, exclude women, Jews, gays, etc. You would be able to fire an employee because you disagreed with their religion or politics, and the list goes on.
The reality is that you can do NONE of those things.
Why?
Because the government has SEVERELY LIMITED your civil rights as a business owner. The Americans with Disabilities Act, the Civil Rights Act, Obamacare, OSHA, the IRS - just to name a few (and that's just at the FEDERAL LEVEL, doesn't even begin to address all of the STATE LEVEL regulations) - ALL of these things prevent you from running your business exactly the way you might want to run it. In the first THREE DAYS of 2014 alone, the fed issued 141 new business regulations (Feds list 141 new regulations in only three days | The Daily Caller). We do not enjoy the same level of Constitutional protection as a business owners as we do as private citizens.
So with that in mind, I will continue to push for the recognition and protection of our Second Amendment CIVIL RIGHT (the Bill of Rights is ALL ABOUT civil rights) to bear arms in our own defense as both employees and customers.
The fact that we CAN do ALL of those things in our own homes is the hallmark of true private property rights. I don't have to let ANYONE into my home for ANY reason imaginable. I don't have to let the JW's, Mormons, or political candidates on my property. If I don't have a handicap compliant toilet in my house, or a handicap space in front of my garage; that's just the way it is. If I don't want anyone carrying a firearm ANYWHERE on my property (including the driveway!) I can prohibit them. That is what rights on TRULY PRIVATE PROPERTY look like.
And FYI - if a homeowner tells me they don't want me to carry on their property, I respect that demand.
Funny how the pro-gun community won't shop at a store where their guns aren't welcome but then willingly comply with the gun show's rules.